1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to transmission lines, electrical conduits and electrical cables. This invention relates particularly to multidirectional, stackable hangers for supporting one or more transmission lines, electrical conduits and electrical cable housings next to each other.
2. Description of the Background Art
Hangers are the preferred devices used for supporting transmission lines, electrical conduits and electrical cable housings. Transmission line hangers receive the lines, conduits or housings and secure them to a supporting structure. Hangers are mostly used to support coaxial cables carrying a great variety of electrical signals. In most uses, the cables must be secured to supporting structures along most, if not all, of their length.
The construction and telecommunications industries use a wide variety of lines, conduits and cables which must be secured when in transit from one location to another, i.e., running an electrical conduit from one light to the next one. Multiple steps are required to use the prior art hardware commonly used to secure cables or conduits to supporting structures.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,354,543 (the “'543 patent”) discloses and claims a hanger structure commonly known as “snap and stack.” The structure disclosed in the '543 patent can secure single lines of cable and then attach additional lines to the first, then to the second and so on. Each time a new line is secured, a new and separate “attaching” step must take place.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,897 (the “'897 patent”) discloses and claims a hanger device that allows two lines to be secured at the same time. The device of the '897 patent would theoretically also allow additional sets of two lines to be attached to the original two lines secured to the supporting structure.
An object of the present invention is to provide for an electrical conduit hanger structure which is easy to assemble, and which reduces the number of steps necessary to secure electrical conduits to a supporting structure.
Another object of this invention is to allow the easy stacking, and easy destacking, of multiple cables, which can then be also easily secured to a supporting structure.
A further object of this invention is to obviate the use of additional hardware to attach the device of this invention to a transmission line tower or to stack the cables or conduits together.
The invention disclosed and claimed herein incorporates into a single structure the most salient features of the devices of the prior art. The device of the present invention secures cables or lines two at a time and includes a “quick connect” feature which allows additional cables to be piggy-backed to the original securing hanger. The present invention allows multiple “piggy-backings” to take place, as needed. In addition, the present invention can be manufactured to accommodate conduits of different shapes and thicknesses, so it can be used to piggyback cables of variable sizes.